This invention relates to an improved wire chafing stand which can be readily stacked in a nested relationship with other wire chafing stands of the same design for compact storage and transportation.
A wire chafing stand is a device used to support aluminum pans and auxiliary fuel heaters for maintaining and heating pre-cooked food at a remote location from the kitchen where the food was originally prepared and cooked. The cost of transportation from the point of manufacture to the distributor and/or to the retailer is a critical economic factor in the pricing of the wire chafing stand.
The chafing stand is designed as an open structure preferably of wire rod steel having predetermined physical dimensions as needed to hold, support and heat a chafing dish when placed thereon. Although the chafing stand has little weight its physical dimensions occupy substantial volume. Accordingly, to minimize the cost of shipping and transportation the chafing stand must be designed to permit a multiple number of stands to be nested together in a compact arrangement in which the nested stands are readily separated from one another for independent usage. Each stand must also function to support a plurality of chafing fuel heaters for heating a chafing dish on the chafing stand. To minimize the cost of manufacture, the wire chafing stand should be designed for minimal human handling and provisions for the chafing fuel heaters should be integral to the design of the stand.
A commercially available chafing stand is described by applicant in U.S. Pat. No. 5,921,513 the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference. This chafing stand includes a separate upper and lower wire rim interconnected by means of symmetrically positioned wire legs at each corner of the stand which in combination with the upper and lower rim construction provides the structural support for the stand. The lower rim is designed to include a plurality of holders for chafing fuel heaters.
The wire chafing stand of the present invention is preferably constructed using only one wire rim and has at least two supporting legs extending therefrom. This significantly reduces the cost of manufacture relative to the stand described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,921,513. When the design is limited to two legs, each should extend from the rim on opposite lateral sides of the stand in a configuration which keeps the stand level with the ground and provides ample structural support for the stand. The rim may have any desired geometry although a rectangular geometry is preferred. The lateral sides of the rim may have handles for manually lifting the chafer from the chafing stand. These handles may be integrally formed as part of the lateral sides of the rim or separately welded thereto. A wire holder connector assembly is used to bridge the legs for supporting chafing fuel heaters. An alternate embodiment of the present invention employs two wire rims similar in construction to the stand described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,921,513 but with an improved lower rim design for supporting multiple holders of chafing fuel heaters.
The preferred wire chafing stand embodiment of the present invention comprises a single rim of generally rectangular configuration having two lateral sides and two wire legs. Each wire leg is in a configuration forming two upstanding sections and a bottom section. The bottom section may be further divided into a plurality of segments including, e.g., two flat segments and a raised segment. The bottom section keeps the stand level with the ground. The stand also includes a wire holder connector assembly which is preferably connected to the raised section of each wire leg to support a plurality of chafing fuel heaters. The wire legs are preferably welded to the rim near the lateral sides of the stand and preferably include an offset adjacent the interconnection of the wire leg to the rim to facilitate the nesting of multiple stands in tandem so as to minimize space for shipping and transporting multiple chafing stands. The offset in each leg laterally displaces the leg relative to the point of attachment with the rim so that the wire legs in one chafing stand can nest a substantial distance within another chafing stand with the rim of each stand in close proximity without causing significant wedging to occur.